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Trust Your Friends? They May Know How Long You'll Live

I don't know whether to be delighted -- scared-- but supposedly your friends know how long you'll live.

That's according to a new study by Washington University in St. Louis. Apparently, close friends may have a better sense of whether
you'll live a long life, suggests new research on personality and
longevity.

“You expect
your friends to be inclined to see you in a positive manner, but they
also are keen observers of the personality traits that could send you to
an early grave,” says Joshua Jackson, PhD, assistant professor of
psychology in Arts & Sciences, at newswise.com.

The study demonstrates that your personality at an early age (20s) can
predict how long you will live across 75 years and that close friends
are usually better than you at recognizing these traits.

Male participants seen by their friends as more open and
conscientious ended up living longer. Female participants whose friends
rated them as high on emotional stability and agreeableness also enjoyed
longer lifespans, the study found.

Oh, no. Is this the old positive thinking thing? I remember being told when I was treated for cancer that my thoughts were very important, and any negative ones would make the treatment not work.

“Our study shows that people
are able to observe and rate a friend’s personality accurately enough to
predict early mortality decades down the road,” Jackson says. “It
suggests that people are able to see important characteristics related
to health even when their friends were, for the most part, healthy and
many years from death.”

I'm starting to think this is more on the scary side.

It’s no secret that a person’s personality traits can have an impact
on health, researchers say. Traits such as depression and anger have been linked to an
increased risk of various diseases and health concerns, including an
early death.

But it's not really as mystical as all that. Men who are conscientious are more likely to eat
right, stick with an exercise routine and avoid risks, such as driving
without a seat belt. Women who are emotionally stable may be better at
fighting off anger, anxiety and depression, Jackson suggests.

While
other studies have shown that a person’s view of his or her own
personality can be helpful in gauging mortality risk, there has been
little research on whether a close friend’s personality assessment might
also predict the odds of a long life.

I kind of hate to give that much power to other people.

But peer ratings of personality were stronger predictors of mortality risk than were self-ratings of personality, the study showed.

“There are two potential reasons for the superiority of peer ratings over self ratings,” Jackson says.
“First,
friends may see something that you miss; they may have some insight
that you do not. Second, because people have multiple friends, we are
able to average the idiosyncrasies of any one friend to obtain a more
reliable assessment of personality. With self reports, people may be
biased or miss certain aspects of themselves and we are not able to
counteract that because there is only one you, only one self-report.”

Well, anyway.

This was interesting: the study also revealed that men’s self-ratings of personality traits were somewhat useful in
predicting their lifespans, whereas the self-reports of women had little
predictive value.

Jackson suggests this gender difference in
self-reporting may be a function of the era in which the study began,
since societal expectations were different then and fewer women worked
outside the home.

Young women seen as highly agreeable and
emotionally stable may have increased odds for a long and happy life
since their personalities were well suited for the role of a supportive
and easy-going wife, which would have been the norm in the 1930s. It is
likely that fewer gender differences would arise in more modern samples
if we were able to wait 75 years to replicate the study, he says.

“This
is one of the longest studies in psychology,” Jackson says. “It shows
how important personality is in influencing significant life outcomes
like health and demonstrates that information from friends and other
observers can play a critical role in understanding a person’s health
issues"

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